


joyful is the fountain that rises in the sun

by rain_sleet_snow



Series: an age of men [3]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Arwen Has Relatives Besides Lúthien, BAMF Arwen Undómiel, F/M, Family, Gondor, Grandmothers, Grandparents & Grandchildren, Light Angst, Love, Post-War of the Ring, Queen Arwen, Royalty, Silmarillion as Family History, The Doom of Men, Valinor, Women In Power
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-16 17:14:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28960038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_sleet_snow/pseuds/rain_sleet_snow
Summary: Arwen's choice is not only the sweet and the bitter. Galadriel has one last conversation with her granddaughter about queenship.
Relationships: Aragorn | Estel/Arwen Undómiel, Arwen Undómiel & Elrond Peredhel, Arwen Undómiel & Galadriel | Artanis, Arwen Undómiel & Lúthien Tinúviel, Elrond Peredhel & Elros Tar-Minyatur, Galadriel | Artanis & Gimli (Son of Glóin)
Series: an age of men [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1480229
Comments: 16
Kudos: 69





	joyful is the fountain that rises in the sun

**Author's Note:**

  * For [brynnmclean (ilfirin_estel)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilfirin_estel/gifts).



> For brynnmclean in 12 fandoms of Christmas! My Silmarillion knowledge is imperfect so please forgive any boo-boos.

The many long years of Galadriel’s beating heart had given her a strong (if not quite total) dependence on the shortsightedness of Men and Elves. And nowhere, Galadriel felt, was this more pronounced than in their encounters with Galadriel’s granddaughter. 

_Lúthien_ , indeed. Galadriel felt she could quite reasonably go a century or two without hearing one more variation on the Lay of Lúthien, be it sung never so beautifully. Arwen certainly resembled her great-grandmother, which was no particular surprise, but Men and Elves who looked at her face and saw nothing of the mind behind it were necessarily limited in their understanding of her. A foolish weakness. But one that might be very useful to a sufficiently intelligent queen. Arwen and Galadriel had discussed this at length.

“This city has been very beautiful. I think it will be more so,” Galadriel observed, strolling with her granddaughter in the gardens of the Halls of Healing. These were the most extensive uninterrupted green space in the upper city of Minas Tirith, save for the green sward by the White Tree, currently a living sapling retrieved from the slopes of Mindolluin by Aragorn’s careful hands. Olórin had told Galadriel of Aragorn’s anxieties, and Galadriel had very nearly laughed: all that wisdom, and neither Aragorn nor Olórin had thought to ask Sam Gamgee where such a tree might have cast its seeds. The little gardener could have told them. 

The little gardener had also told Galadriel, in his unpretentious way, that the gardens of the Halls of Healing were the prettiest in the city, and didn’t leave you unpleasantly exposed to onlookers, unless you went and stood on the walls. And since Galadriel didn’t want to be overheard, either in the Sindarin so widely spoken here or in the Quenya of her childhood, she had chosen to walk with Arwen in the gardens - after making a visit to the lady Éowyn, by way of excuse. 

Éowyn Wraithslayer was bold and brave, and though she lowered her eyes before Galadriel as if struck by awe, and did Arwen all honour as her future queen, Galadriel sensed she was unwilling to be daunted and liked her for it. She told Éowyn that she had an air of the lady Haleth of ancient renown, and told Arwen - at a different moment and in another tongue entirely - that Éowyn was an acquaintance to cultivate.

“She will marry the lord Faramir, and Aragorn will make him Prince of Ithilien,” Arwen said absently, admiring the blooms on a trellis. Parts of the garden, Galadriel noted, had recently been dug up and replanted with _athelas_. Clearly Aragorn had made his presence felt. “So she will be the second lady in Gondor. I intend to get to know her much better. What did you mean, this city _has been_ very beautiful?”

“Only that it is fallen from its former glory,” Galadriel said. “So you will need to restore it in _your_ chosen style of glory.”

Arwen gave her a laughing glance from bright grey eyes that reminded Galadriel very strongly of Elros. Not the wise elder he became, but the new-made king of Númenor, when the men of Westernesse had only just laid hands on the paradise which sank below the waves thousands of years before Aragorn was born or thought of. Elrond had always said that his daughter was like his brother, however many people insisted on drawing a straight line between her and Tinúviel; Galadriel had known Elros very little, but she traced the likeness in the memories that sprang to Elrond’s face.

“You sound like you might be worried about my taste, grandmother.”

“Oh, no,” Galadriel said dryly. “Only the possibility that you might overreach yourself. You take after me, granddaughter.”

The laughter died in Arwen’s face, and she looked thoughtfully at Galadriel. The bloom in her hand slipped from her fingers, and a few lazy petals fell. “Not my mother?”

“No. Celebrían was all her father’s daughter,” Galadriel said - not without either memory or pain. She didn’t ask Arwen if she had considered that she would never see Celebrían again, since her mother had long ago sailed West and that route was now closed to Arwen. They had had many conversations about that, too. “Fortunately. Her temper is sweeter than mine.”

Arwen smiled. “You have always been very even-tempered with me and my brothers.”

“The effect of experience. But I will ask you to be serious, Arwen.” Galadriel turned her face into the sun and lingered there a moment, and - finding her granddaughter listening closely - chose her words with care. “I left Valinor for pride and delight in discovery. I wished to build, to create, to rule.”

“Like my uncle.”

Galadriel never had more than the most superficial of conversations with Elros, and that many years past. But Arwen and her brothers know as much as there is left to know of Elros Tar-Minyatur, who chose not to be counted with his brother’s people. “Perhaps. But although I have loved Arda with all my heart, and though I have indeed played my part in great kingdoms that are now forgotten, and though I have been the Lady of Lothlórien for years beyond the counting, there was a cost to that, Arwen.”

“The Helcaraxë,” said Arwen, picking up a well-remembered theme. Some things Galadriel had hesitated to share with her daughter: Arwen, more ambitious and a more reckless seeker after knowledge, had sought them out. Then, too, Galadriel had known she couldn’t raise Arwen to be gentle and strong and beloved, and hope that peace would come to her. The kinder life she had tried to create for Celebrían had been scattered like so many stones on a riverbed.

“The Helcaraxë was only a beginning,” she said. Arwen knew that perfectly well: they had talked about this, too.

Galadriel stepped into another patch of sunlight. Arwen moved with her, and reached out to chafe her hands, which still felt the cold of the Grinding Ice. Elves did not suffer from the stiffening of the joints that Men did, unless the joint were gravely injured and poorly healed, but they could die of cold, or hunger, or thirst, at the very last extremity. Some Galadriel had known had met that last extremity on the Helcaraxë, and she carried the memory with her always.

“A poor beginning,” said Arwen.

“Very poor.” Galadriel clasped her granddaughter’s hands. “There’s a price, Arwen. Be sure it’s worth it.”

“Both the sweet and the bitter,” Arwen echoed, and then shook her head. Galadriel sighed: bad enough to hear others associate Arwen with Lúthien, but to hear Arwen herself do it -

“Was it worth it for you?” Arwen said, and took Galadriel quite by surprise. 

The Girdle of Melian, the Grinding Ice; the ruin of Beleriand, the great dragons, the Witch King and Curunír and Sauron and so many petty evils. So many losses; so many bitter deaths, so many without even the hope of meeting again, within the circles of the world. All Galadriel’s brothers, and the agonies they had suffered… 

Galadriel was not the only one of Finarfin’s children Arwen resembled.

“Yes,” Galadriel said. “But the cost has been… great. I bear it because I must.” 

“But it was worth it,” Arwen said, and sighed. “I know there is no joy without grief. But I do not think that makes joy the lesser.”

“No,” Galadriel admitted.

“I will miss your counsel,” Arwen said, taking her arm as they walked on. “And it does grieve me, that you will never see our kingdom.”

_My_ kingdom, she might as well have said. For Aragorn would be a soldier-king, but Arwen knew how to rule. Which was perhaps Galadriel’s fault, for having taught her how.

_Both the sweet and the bitter._

“Neither will your father.”

“That’s different.”

Galadriel couldn’t deny that. They strolled for a few more moments, and Galadriel thought, again, about her brothers. Arwen had never met any of them, but she knew their stories.

“I told you,” she said, “about my brother Aegnor.” Aegnor, who fell in love with a maiden of the Edain; Aegnor who despaired of making a life with Andreth, and threw himself into their cousins’ war against Morgoth like he hoped for nothing better than to burn. And who did burn, on the fields of the Dagor Bragollach.

“Yes,” Arwen said slowly. 

“I don’t say you should not enjoy the warmth of it,” Galadriel said. “But don’t make your love your whole life. Don’t allow it to consume you.”

“A banked fire, not a wild one,” Arwen said thoughtfully.

How strange that she should have chosen that metaphor of all others. “Yes.”

Arwen leaned her head affectionately against Galadriel’s. Galadriel had always been accounted tall even for an elf-maiden, and people had made as much of it as they made of Arwen’s beauty, but they were almost exactly the same height.

“I will remember it,” she said at last.

Galadriel looked out over the renewed Fields of the Pelennor, still somewhat scorched and tumbledown in places, and hoped so.

It was many long years later that Legolas Thranduilion threw Valinor into a state of complete disarray by introducing a dwarf onto its hallowed shores. Galadriel could already hear the arguments. But far more importantly she could see Gimli son of Glóin in her solar, making speeches as courteous as any he had made in the Golden Wood, and bearing gifts.

Many messages he and Legolas had already delivered: letters from kin left in Middle-Earth, histories and drawings and poetry. Other gifts, too, had already been delivered to Elrond and Celebrían, complete with the most recent news of Elladan and Elrohir, who still remained behind. But Gimli seemed to have cleared out a treasury’s worth of things she would find meaningful or interesting and laid them at her feet, starting with a simple rosewood box.

“What is this?” she asked as she opened it, and found that a circlet sat on silk inside: mithril, simple and delicate, made in an abstract form that - when Galadriel looked at it sideways - looked like curling flames.

“The crown of Arwen Undómiel, Queen of Gondor and Arnor,” said Gimli. “She bequeathed it to you before all else.”

Galadriel had known many griefs. But this one made her smile before she wept.


End file.
